Gambiaj.com – (KINGSTON, Jamaica) – A delegation from The Gambia is wrapping up a five-day study tour to gain insights into Jamaica’s public sector transformation program.

The delegation, led by Secretary General and head of the Gambia’s civil service, Salimatta Touray, arrived on the island on June 2 and was hosted by the Transformation Implementation Unit (TIU) in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.

According to a TIU statement issued on Thursday, The Gambia is preparing a public administration and modernization project to improve fiscal and human resource management (HR) capacity.

Touray expressed that The Gambia could benefit from studying Jamaica’s efforts to transform its public sector, particularly in implementing MyHR+, an integrated HR and payroll system across the public sector.

“On the advice of the World Bank, we were told to come to Jamaica because it has gone through its modernization program and has one of the best systems available. We’ve been learning a lot, and definitely we see the vast difference the system can make to our operations in The Gambia,” she said, adding that the tour has been “very helpful” in gathering insights for Gambia’s transformation program.

In the meantime, Executive Director of the TIU, Maria Thompson Walters, said the study tour provided a valuable opportunity to share lessons with the Gambian team.

“It has been a pleasure hosting the delegation, and I believe the tour has been beneficial. It is good to know that even as we are transforming our own public service, we can be of value to countries going through similar exercises,” she said.